caterwauls are my screams in the night from the back fence,
aimed at the inequitable situations in our present society and the ridiculousness of life's paths........
With a little silliness too . . . for sanity.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

The Parti Quebecois is celebrating a return to power in the province of Quebec after nine years in opposition! Led by Pauline Marois, many Quebeckers have high hopes of a separation referendum in the near future.
If she does put that proposal to the people, I hope she is a little more honest than former leader Jacques Parizeau was in 1995 on the implementation of the vote and his information to the people about what the results of a Yes vote would mean.
The separatists, at that time, ordered all aircraft of Canada within Quebec to become the Nation of Quebec's property. They ordered all Canadian forces on military bases to change allegiance to Canada to allegiance to Quebec! They anticipated that an airline (or any other corporation) with head offices in Quebec, would become the property of Quebec.

The Quebec people were allowed to believe many ideas that did not anticipate a backlash from English Canada against the breakaway province;
That they would continue to travel on Canadian passports. That they would continue to receive transfer payments from the rich provinces of Canada into Quebec coffers. That their jobs in Ottawa would just go on as if nothing had happened. That they would continue to sell their wares throughout Canada as preferred goods without duties. That they would still send MPs to a Canadian Parliament in Ottawa to participate in and have a voice in Canadian affairs. That Canadian dollars would be the currency of Quebec. And that the French Language would continue to be the equal of English within Canada and be mandatory in Yellowknife.

The people of that province were led to believe that it would be business as usual with the Canadian government.

Some suspect that the Prime Minister of Canada in 1995, Jean Chretien, a Quebecker himself, was tacitly agreeing to the sovereignty of Quebec by his less than enthusiastic support of Canada and decidedly feeble influences in the debate in order to become known as the 'Father of Quebec'. When he could someday tell those French Nationals that he allowed the process to cement the future of the new nation..

Well we all know what happened. The vote lost by 50.58% NO, against a 49.42% YES! Causing Parizeau to blame "those f*cking ethnics" for the loss. The ensuing controversy was because there were so many 'idiosyncrasies' found in the voting process.
Canadian aboriginals were firmly against coming under the rule of Quebec too, the Grand Council of Crees, voted 96.3% to stay in Canada. And if the separation vote succeeded, would consider their territories as part of Canada, not Quebec. And if Quebec could secede, then so could the Cree.

So now we have Madame Marois, elected as Prime Minister of Quebec, who will lead their 'National Assembly' into another separation vote.
But perhaps this time the playing field is a little more balanced. No one expects Stephen Harper to remain quiet if and when that vote does come up.
This time all Canadian Military will likely be ordered to duties away from Quebec long before any vote. Assets from Canada will be removed. One would also expect that the people would soon need Quebec passports and Visas to continue working in Canada. And their employment would of course be transferred to Canadian citizens who can do the job over hiring foreigners. Any negotiations with Canada would now proceed without having a Quebecker on both sides of the table!
International consequences would be that Quebec would no longer be represented in Canadian Embassies worldwide.
It remains to be seen what the reaction of America might be.

Too harsh? Maybe, maybe not, but the balance of power would immediately shift to the Western provinces, whose people have voiced that they are fed up with the French Canadian hand permanently in their pockets. And the worry of the sitting government over catering to those cast-in-concrete Quebec seats will be over.Canada could go to a fair and equitable participation in it's democracy.

So will the separation vote come sooner or later? It is always great to play the sovereignty issue with Quebec voters, but sooner or later, Pauline Marois will have to put her money where her mouth is.

I hope I can be on the early voters list. Because I am sending in my YES vote now. Enough is enough. The world is moving too fast for us to baby a retrograde province in our midst.

So Quebec, please go, look after yourself for a change. Maybe you can form an alliance with the US. Or perhaps France will give you passports. Or Haiti, they like French! Strike out on your own, go for it!

Whatever, good luck and bon chance! I'm off to collect a French language sign as a collectors' item of a bygone era.

Monday, September 03, 2012

So we spend millions on installing turnstiles for Skytrain to stop fare evasion. Except for two stations that aren't getting turnstiles, Metrotown and Main Street station won't have gates, because they need major renovations.
And we have Translink telling us there's still a lot of fare evasion and our 100 thou a year transit cops will be policing it. (59 of 169 Transit cops make that, the rest only get about 75 thou a year)
Are the gates low enough to have people hop over them? As in OJ running for his juice on the plane? Or movie cops chasing the perp?
They look high in the pic.

There will be 400 gates. Installation completed by 2013.
They are saying the cost will be about 100 million, but then Translink sort of forgets that there's a 'smart card' system costing 70 million additional. So that is a cost of 170 million, Province of BC will kick in 40 million, the Federal government 30 million. That leaves Translink itself with 100 million. (they are currently in a 30 million deficit and threatening to raise the gas tax yet again) Of course this smart card system, a Compass Card, could cost us a billion more in guarantees for that company too! Considering the way they hand out contracts in BC. (You are paying a fortune in guarantees to the company that monitors traffic across the Golden Ears Bridge, even though there IS no traffic!)

Translink loses about 7 million a year from fare evasion. You could wait 24 YEARS before you lose the 170 million cost of correcting that situation! Some stations are as high as 1 in 9 evaders (Granville) others as low as 1 in 35. (Edmonds) Of course Translink will also lose the 173 dollar fines too. IF they could collect them. Keep in mind that most fare evaders are evading because they don't have
the money, so it sort of follows that they are not really choosing to ignore the $173 tickets, one would assume they don't have that money either!
Currently they issue 64,000 tickets worth 11 million every year.
About 150 tickets a day average @ $173 = $25950 per day x 365 = $9,471,750.00 a year. Without turnstiles, Translink would make an extra 9.5 million a year if they just kept on issuing tickets! For a profit of 2.5 million a year just by letting the evaders continue to evade but capturing them! But now they're on the radio telling you where the cops will be checking fares. I don't get it. Do you?
Maybe we need to go back to the good old days and have ham-fisted railroad harness bulls like Ernest Borgnine?

Translink CEO Doug Kelsey said he expects the system to "pay for itself", starting in 2014.
At 7 million a year in savings from fare evasion, for a cost of the system of 170 million, easy math from Doug, it'll all be paid up by 2038!

Only whites, huh?

Wow, that's why we pay Translink execs the big bucks! They can figure out stuff.

Start planning for the party.
But what will gas cost in 2038?

I'm not sure what this post actually says, except to say I think I just don't quite get it when it comes to Translink. And that maybe when you're a Chief of something or other, and you CAN do stuff to make yourself more important, you DO do that stuff. The money just comes from that haven of taxpayers.

I've never been able to figure out how Translink thinks since the creme-de-la-creme of Kerrisdale vetoed the natural and cheapest route to the airport. And then they lied about how the Cambie route would be a tunnel.
And none of this considers the 1.4 billion dollar Evergreen line and where that money will come from. Maybe by then they'll have fare cages that catch and hold you for ransom until you cough up double.
This is all because of fare evaders.